Like this:

Food fail — After writing the following, I ordered almond chicken from Chinese place. Hadn’t realized the chicken would be breaded. Ate a few pieces. So, Wheat Freedom — Day 11 is tainted. And, my consequences are significant queasiness — from what? From wheat? Don’t know. But new motivation to stick to the plan. Note to self: no more fast food, please.

***

Have less and less of a desire for bread as time moves on. What I’m noticing is that I seem to have more energy and a keener awareness. Not sure if that’s really happening or is the result of having been completely convinced by the book’s arguments.

I’ll take it, though.

A soft morning rain is making me think of the north and how I love the smell of the woods during and after a rain.

Like this:

Yesterday, my friend and I swam in her pool — joyously and with the rain coming down if not in buckets, then in really nice, tall champagne flutes. We were treading water and talking — always talking — when the rain began — and there hadn’t been any sun to begin with. So we just continued to tread and talk and talk and tread — and even to float a little.

It felt like a moment I’ll remember. I think it’s because we were there, able to tread water, able to talk, able to laugh with faces upturned to the rain. We’re not ill, we’re not injured, we’re not homeless and we’re not trying to figure out ways to abscond for greener pastures — at least not noticeably.

We were there. So we turned our faces toward the rain. No, we didn’t drink it in — that would have required music, which isn’t at all our style.

Like this:

It’s raining. One of the nicest sounds in the universe is that of rain falling on the water, on the earth. Also hearing the whiffle snore of a sleeping 2-year-old, another of creation’s Very Best Sounds.

My friend’s daughter is nearly 100 percent deaf. Can’t imagine a life without sound. To never hear The Beatles “Love is Real” or Joan Baez’s “Sweet Sir Galahad?” No.

I like the sound of the computer keyboard working as I type. I like hearing my niece’s texting sounds as we drive to see her cousin. I like the sound of the eggs boiling on the stove.

I’m grateful, too, for the ever-present whoosh — the result of tinnitus, I’m told — in my ears. That might be hard to believe, but it’s true.